


...Maybe This Year Will Be Better Than The Last...

by BlaiddDrwg1982



Series: Future Imperfect [3]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Derek Comforts Stiles, Dreams and Nightmares, Hints at Stiles Missing Year, M/M, Stiles Has Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-20
Updated: 2014-08-20
Packaged: 2018-02-13 22:18:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2167233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlaiddDrwg1982/pseuds/BlaiddDrwg1982
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>We know what Derek and the Pack went through during Stiles' one year absence...but what happened to Stiles while he was gone? Where did he go?</p>
            </blockquote>





	...Maybe This Year Will Be Better Than The Last...

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not evil.

October 2017 - Los Angeles

Nearly 4 months had passed since Stiles' remarkable return to life, and while he'd been filled in on what had transpired in his absence, the good the bad and the ugly, he'd been keeping pretty quiet about what he had gone through while they thought he was dead. Any time someone tried to broach the subject with him, he deftly avoided it, and distracted them so they wouldn't have a chance to do a follow up. It was harder for some, but when Derek started treading into that territory...well...he couldn't be blamed too much if he suddenly was naked and covered in caramel drizzle...could he?

Laying in bed, feeling the heady weight of sleep pulling at him, he felt a whimper leave his throat as the darkness that lead to his dreams overwhelmed him and folded him into the dark embrace of night.

***

"You have to let go," he felt the words slip from his lips as though he were merely the channel from which the stream of thought flowed. He was already disengaging. The spell was already working. Neal and Nancy were pulling it off. Despite the fact his arms burned in pain from the break, and the demi-demon was trying to burn him alive, he felt...at peace.

"You have to let go Derek," he knew Derek would never.

"I'm not leaving you!" The fear, no, not fear. The terror in his lover's voice and on his face would sear itself into his mind's eye. An indelible mark that would never be wiped away.

"Where I'm going, you can't follow," he was getting dizzy. He didn't have long now.

From beneath him, the cherufe let out its scream of delight.

"We're supposed to be together," he felt Derek's tears fall on his face like a warm salty rain. Derek. His beautiful Derek. The reason he had been so ready to give himself up. He would never forgive him. If he survived. If he came back...how could he ever be forgiven for doing this to someone he loved.

"And we were. And it was love, and true. And that's what I give to you," he walked into the embrace of death to save his Pack. To save his town. His regret...his only regret, would be what he'd have to do to save them. 

Somehow, Stiles pulled something from the small of his back. A flare gun.

"You gave me love. I give you life. Be brave."

Pulling the trigger on the flare gun, and setting off the chain of events, he was able to spare one last look up at Derek, and he saw the look of horror on Derek's face. Seeing the look of sadness on Lydia's as she reached the edge, he released his grip and let the heat wash over him as he died.

He never did hear Lydia scream.

***

As he fell, and as the fire tore through his body, he felt weightless as Neal and Nancy's spell surrounded him and pulled him out of the metaphorical...and literal...inferno that had erupted around his body.

Rolling to a stop, he was vaguely aware of the damage done to his body. The fact he was still conscious was proof that this wasn't a realm that obeyed the laws of nature. 

"Not the nature you are accustomed to at any rate."

He couldn't place the voice, but it seemed familiar. Looking around the blank white room, he was vaguely aware that his body was returning to him in slow steps. That he could feel anything below his waist was a miracle. The fact he was standing not long after was the next. 

Looking down, he saw himself whole and undamaged. 

"You seem surprised."

"Well. Given that I was on fire not even 6 minutes ago...yeah, the fact I'm not twisted and charred IS a bit of a big deal."

Looking over, a woman appeared. She was tall, regal in appearance, and striking in her beauty. She had a familiar air about her, but he couldn't put his finger on it until he looked at her eyes. He knew those eyes. He'd woken up a great many times to them, had looked up at them in his most intimate moments, and could spot them across a lacrosse field half blinded by blood in his eyes.

"Talia? But if I'm seeing you then I'm..."

"Not dead."

"But you..."

"Not dead yet. For me, it's three years before the fire claims my life and the lives of my family. For you, it's the day you gave the greatest gift you could think of to my son."

"But if you know..."

"Then why don't I stop it?"

Stiles nodded his head. She was so calm about the fact she knew she would be dead in three years from her perspective.

"Because. Free will must be maintained. Decisions lead to consequences. Consequences shape the decisions we make again. For that, we have consensus. But to answer it in a context you'll understand...the horrific fire that claims us was the more peaceful option available."

"How are you here?"

"Every living thing plays a roll in the world. Some people, for reasons we will never understand, have been able to slip out of time, to guide and shape things to come, and slide back to their time, and not remember what they did."

Stiles raised his brow in confusion.

"It isn't important to understand it now. But there is always the Us. The We. I am one of many. We each have a unique outlook, different experience to help maintain the Balance."

Stiles still wasn't understanding, but they said it didn't matter, so it didn't matter.

"He has your eyes."

"He does at that."

Stiles fell into silence for a moment.

"What am I doing here?"

Talia smiled sadly and shrugged her shoulders.

"That isn't for me to know Dear One. And even if I told you, you wouldn't remember when you return to the land of the living. You must heal though. If you were to leave now, your body would return to the state that it was in when you left."

"I would die."

"In truth and in word. And then Derek would follow you. The only thing that will keep him alive is the fact there is no body to find."

"How will that help him."

Smiling softly as she started to walk away, "My boy always believes in fairytales, and he's counting on one to fulfill what I promised him when he was a child."

"And that is?"

"You'll find out."

He saw her disappear and found himself quite alone. For how long? He didn't know. His cellphone hadn't made the trip, nor his watch. He wasn't hungry, or tired. It could have been hours. It could have been centuries. 

Seeing another enter the realm with him, he raised an eyebrow as the mist dissolved to show a Crone, twisted with age, and using a cane to hold herself up. 

"Lydia?"

The Crone looked up with watering eyes, and smiled a faint smile that looked like it had taken all of her energy. Holding a hand to her lips in a gasp, they were beautiful in their age. The skin was papery and thin, wrinkled and knotted, and showing the story of a life that had been full of passion. She was oddly silent. Pressing her finger to her lips, she gave him the "Shhh" motion, but still with out a sound. Pressing her finger tips to her ear, she was asking him to listen.

The voices were faint, and far away. Like he was listening through a wall with ear plugs in.

"I don't know when it was that I fell in love with Stiles. I've thought about it, and I've never been able to pin point it. When I met him, I was damaged beyond belief. I hated the world. I'd lost my older sister, and I didn't know my younger sister was still alive. I had a chip on my shoulder that weighed a thousand pounds, and I had no interest in throwing it off. Stiles wouldn't let me get away with that. At all. He called me on my bullshit from day one, and it pissed me RIGHT off. He was always so...happy. I couldn't stand it. I couldn't stand him. And I knew I couldn't let anything bad happen to him."

Stiles looked at Lydia, whose eyes were damp, remembering the day with clarity. A sad sigh escaped her lips.

"He won me over. Slowly. But he did. He brought back my humanity. He brought back my smile. He was my moral compass when I went off track, and he never judged me when I stumbled and fell. He became more important to me by inches more than yards. He got into my head, and moved into my heart.

Stiles felt the tears well up in his eyes, feeling the draw to go back, but it wasn't time yet. He knew that. So why was Lydia showing this to him?

"He would often ask, after he thought I'd fallen asleep, what he did to deserve me. But the question really is, what did I do to deserve him. He loved me, with his whole being. He'd often joke that he was merely human, but he was the strongest person I have ever known. His body was human, but his spirit...his very being...was beyond words. We lost a good man here. But, I know, looking at everyone here, that he isn't really gone. And now, every day when I look in his little sister's eyes, I know that he's never far. He's still in my heart."

The voices faded to the distance, and he wasn't able to make out the commotion that had taken place. Turning at Lydia, looking like he'd been struck bodily by her walking stick, he said through the tears, "Why make me listen to that?"

She looked at him sadly and took his face in her hands that, for the age and the twisting, were able to hold him like a vice. Bringing his head down so she could whisper in his ear.

"To remind you why you did this."

Letting him go, she shuffled away, fading with every inch she stepped away, he collapsed on the ground. The words Derek had said were full of love. They were a beautiful eulogy, and tribute to him. Feeling overwhelmed, he turned to walk away, but found he was rooted to the spot.

"You almost destroyed him you know."

Turning around, he looked at who had said that. Feeling his face go cold, he recognized Kate immediately.

"What's wrong Stiles. You thought this place was only populated by the spirits of the good and righteous? Don't you know for a little balance you have to have a little darkness?"

Walking towards him, she was every inch the bitch she was when she was alive. Granted, the way this world seemed to work, she very well could be.

"He was going to end it all in a blaze of glory and it would have been all your fault. Only thing that stopped him was your friends. He was all poised to do it too after your funeral. It would have been beautiful. Clutching your picture in one hand and shooting himself in the heart with a wolfsbane laced bullet with your eulogy in one pocket, and suicide note in the other. Right on top of your grave."

Smiling an evil little smile at him.

"If you could do that just by loving him, imagine what you could have done if you hated him. I mean, even I was just going to kill him. You fucking destroyed him. Well done junior."

Her laugh was the last thing he'd heard.

Left alone with that ringing through his head, he felt the countdown getting closer. Was it true? Had he destroyed Derek? Even with the touching words...when did they happen? He tried to remember that he wouldn't remember this all, but how could that be? This was so

"Real."

Looking he didn't even have to guess who it was.

"Mom."

Nodding her head, she smiled. She was whole. She was healthy. She was dead.

"Oh my boy. My poor poor boy. Your head. Your thoughts. You always were too smart for your own good."

Feeling his chin quiver, he ran to her, letting her pull him into her embrace, and just holding her not wanting to let go. 

"We don't have long. Just remember..."

***

Stiles woke up screaming. Screaming until his throat was hoarse. Until he'd lost his voice. Until Scott and Allison came in because Derek couldn't shake him awake.

"You're okay. You're okay."

He felt Derek murmur than again his throat while tears streamed down his face.

Eventually he calmed down and could hear them again.

Rolling over, seeing the look of fear and horror on Derek's face in his memory, he buried himself in Derek's chest.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Derek always expected the answer to be no.

"I let go," Stiles whispered like a lost child.

Three words that sent a shiver down Derek's spine as he sat up in bed, pulling Stiles into his warm embrace.

"Where did you land when you fell?"

Stiles could see the memory, but he couldn't find the words. Shaking his head, he sunk in exhaustion into Derek's embrace.

"Away."

Feeling the embrace tighten.

"Tell me about your nightmare."

In slow, stuttering breaths, Stiles closed his eyes and summoned the images.

"There was a room..."

Into the night, he talked, about the wonders he had seen in the dreamspace, that felt so real. The terrors he'd felt as he'd been chased by the haunting image of Kate and the torture from Gerard. He could not remember what he'd seen of the future...and that was where his terror lay.

"I don't know what the future holds Derek...but something's coming...something bad."

"Will we survive?"

"I think so."

"We always do. We survive."

Blinking his eyes, he asks with a haunted voice.

"But at what price?"

**Author's Note:**

> Totally not foreshadowing ANYTHING.


End file.
